Bharti switches to SMS intranet

New Delhi: Internal communication in a company is always done through emails. But it often gets restricted to the availability of a PC, laptop or a smart phone. To tackle this challenge Airtel's staff of 20,000 is now connected with me-tize, designed by IBM and implemented in a phased manner over the past couple of months, to communicate with each other with the help of SMS. Today, the system hosts almost 90 percent of the communication within the company, pushing emails to a corner, according to the Economic Times.

"As far as we know, no other company in the world has implemented a platform of this nature," said Jai Menon, the brain behind the project. Menon, who heads technology and customer service at Bharti, says me-tize works round-the-clock and on all handsets from basic phones to smartphones. It cuts out delays due to 'out of office' and 'holiday' reasons. "Productivity is one major pillar, but not the only one that led us to do away with the corporate email communications in office. There are factors of convenience. With SMS, the turnaround time is instant. This is also a green initiative as our employees no longer need to be physically connected to their notebooks. One does not have to switch on their laptops to check and clear office mails," explained Menon.

IBM has developed over 20 such templates for the company, and to ensure security and accountability, all SMSes are linked to the company's back-end. That means a back-up for every SMS sent, and a guarantee of assured action. At least 1.5-million transactions have been approved via SMSes over the past four months at the company.

Bharti executives also pointed out that the bulk of the internal email communications were HR-related. "With me-tize, these mails have all been translated to SMS alerts. This platform also allows employees to access their salary statements, leave records, medical and insurance data on the mobiles without having to raise queries. Accessing all this information on the mobile or viewing them as an SMS alert is more easier and effective," explained Kris Shankar, HR Head of Bharti Airtel.

The biggest beneficiaries of me-tize service have been the company's sales team. "We have 4,000 employees on the field doing sales. Earlier, they required computers (with internet) to send requests, get approvals and even access their own data. It is never easy to access the intranet while on the go. It is this segment that has benefited the most - me-tize has boosted productivity of our sales force," Shankar added. Shankar also said that me-tize has empowered employees as they could access all their records on the handset, bypassing the traditional process of getting in touch with the HR department for the same.

The adaptation of me-tize extends even to Bharti Airtel's CEO Manoj Kohli. "We are the most wired office in the world with me-tize. Most of the things that require clearance at my level are also now done via SMS," Kohli said.